The Himalayas. The IPCC had warned that Himalayan glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”. Photograph: Wikimedia commons

The head of the IPCC Dr. Rajenda Pachauri had said: India was ‘arrogant’ to deny global warming link to melting glaciers.From the Guardian article:

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”.

Today Ramesh denied any such risk existed: “There is no conclusive scientific evidence to link global warming with what is happening in the Himalayan glaciers.” The minister added although some glaciers are receding they were doing so at a rate that was not “historically alarming”.

However, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the Guardian: “We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”

We also reported on the finding of Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

The IPCC’s reliance on Hasnain’s 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for the New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine. Pearce said: “Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain. The report had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis. Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt. However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers. not the whole massif.”

The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain’s 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.

When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was “very high”. The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%. The report read: “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.”

However, glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is 2-3 feet a year and most are far lower.

…

Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as “voodoo science”. Last week the IPCC refused to comment so it has yet to explain how someone who admits to little expertise on glaciers was overseeing such a report. Perhaps its one consolation is that the blunder was spotted by climate scientists who quickly made it public.

…

Pearce said the IPCC’s reliance on the WWF was “immensely lazy” and the organisation need to explain itself or back up its prediction with another scientific source. Hasnain could not be reached for comment.

The revelation is the latest crack to appear in the scientific consensus over climate change. It follows the climate-gate scandal, where British scientists apparently tried to prevent other researchers from accessing key date. Last week another row broke out when the Met Office criticised suggestions that sea levels were likely to rise 1.9m by 2100, suggesting much lower increases were likely.

Personally, my take is that India had something to say about this, and it might have something to do with ‘foreign bodies’ with designs on throttling India’s newfound productivity.
Voodoo Science? Mighty harsh words from the High Shaman of GAIA.
Where is the love?

A number of scientists who backed the CO2 based AGW theory are now suffering from buyer’s remorse. According to atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, “many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly, without having their professional careers ruined.”

The institute that Pauchauri receives enumeration from, has a share in a lucrative €3 million EU research project called “High Noon”, aimed at assessing the effects of the Himalayan glaciers retreat, caused by climate change.
Now if that isn’t incentive to find and espouse any data, regardless of the source, to support shrinking glaciers, I don’t know what is. It is a huge conflict of interest, which interestingly enough does not contravene any Conflict Of Interest Guidelines for IPCC committee members, because there are no Conflict Of Interest Guidelines for the IPCC committee members. How convenient.

Never mind ‘arrogance’ or “I told you so’. Rajendra Pachauri must be forced to resign and the IPCC revamped, if not dissolved.

When the Chairman of such influential body as the IPCC oversees a gravely misleading mistake in AR4, then fails to investigate it when pointed out, instead attacking the source of the new information, and has known conflicts of interest to boot, he has clearly failed any test of competence and integrity and must be forced to resign.

If a police chief or even a government minister showed such contempt for due process, he would be removed. That Pachauri remains in his position, indicates the low level of honesty, competence and heights of hypocrisy deemed acceptable at the UN. Pachauri must resign.

Glenn, thank you. Here it goes:
“The Hindukush-Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers are the water towers of Asia,” says Prof. Syed Iqbal Hasnain of the Energy Research Institute, who has been studying the melting of the Himalayan glaciers for several years.

Looking ahead, the prospects seem to be getting worse rather than better, according to Hasnain. “Scientists have projected a 43 percent decrease in the glacial area on an average by 2070 and a 75 percent decrease in the glacial area by the end of the 21st century at the current rate of global warming,” says Hasnain.

At the current rate of global warming … beside there is a huge gap between “disappeared by 2035” and “43 percent decrease by 2070”, this simple forward-calculating of something happening today for another 100 years is the worst possible way of forecasting.

If I continue drinking as I did last night, I will not survive the next 20 years … something at this level.

Interesting to learn how the IPCC works and what many politicians swallow easily.
Not funny.

And considering his arrogant, un-scientific statements and actions on this issue – Why hasn’t he been sacked ? His behaviour was totally unacceptable for a scientist, and there is no excuse for him not being sacked for his behaviour.

“The institute that Pauchauri receives enumeration from, has a share in a lucrative €3 million EU research project called “High Noon”, aimed at assessing the effects of the Himalayan glaciers retreat, caused by climate change.”

“As discussed in the thematic introduction to this regional status review, there is particular concern at the alarming rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers. In 1999, a report by the Working Group on Himalayan Glaciology (WGHG) of the International Commission for Snow and Ice (ICSI) stated: “glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the livelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 is very high”

OT remove if you find it not apropiated
I would like your opinion about this mail http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/0880476729.txt
(note: on eastangliaemails this email only contains Tom’s answer, i find it also interesting the document they endorsed (might be the begining of the climate politics epoch?), and btw why it’s not full on eastangliaemails?)

anthony,
the nasa giss/kusi story continues to be totally ignored by the MSM. and i mean TOTALLY, apart from delingpole’s blog.

HOWEVER, have u seen this?

NYT: Andrew Revkin: Hansen and Watts Agree: Cold Weather, Warm Climate
Some critics said this was simply Mr. Watts’s trying to cover for his earlier posts on unusual cold and to appear moderate amid all the strident charges that global warming is an outright hoax.
But to my mind, given the depth of the gulf between the perception of climate held by many people and the scientific realities, this is a moment of accord worth noting. …http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/hansen-and-watts-agree-cold-weather-isnt-climate/

No one will resign or be fired or punished in any way. They will probably get more money for their positions or research just the same as Mike Mann. Governments are mostly corrupt and lots of the folks that work for them.
I have a great attitude-don’t I?

It’s a first step but it would be better if the IPCC would retract their entire AGW claims
so we can stop the entire package of Government policies that will kill or economies, from CO2 emission standards for vehicles to the use of bio fuels, wind and solar.

We have 300 years to develop real technologies to replace fossil and abiotic fuels.

Preferably in a free market by free people without any Government meddling.

“to assess the impact of Himalayan glaciers retreat and possible changes of the Indian summer monsoon on the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources in Northern India and to provide recommendations for appropriate and efficient response strategies that strengthen the cause for adaptation to hydrological extreme events.”

The closest I see to a retraction is from Lal: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

I wouldn’t call that a retraction. Even removing the assertion is no where near a retraction, it’s just sweeping something under the rug and hoping no one really notices.

“If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

What if he doesn’t do this what if he says (as he did) that he did indeed say this? What in blazes does that have to do with it? Isn’t the qusestion “does proper research support the assertion? ” If not shouldn’t the statement and conclusions be retracted and have NOTHING to do with what he said. In fact shouldn’t a rediculous claim like this have been checked before it ever got into any report?

A very large front page article on this in The Australian today, very good to see.

So the climate scientists that read the IPCC 2007 report that contained this claim ‘quickly made it public’ about 2 and a half years later!! Hate to see how long it would have taken them if they were tardy……

Most interesting is the resignation follow-up email correspondence between Landsea and IPCC notables(aka The Liars Club), including Trenberth and Pauchari. Even includes all the email addy’s for those of you who are looking for pen pals.
Landsea is a Man of Great Character in my book, although I know there are many who resigned rather than go with the gravy train of consensus.

That’s about 2% of Australia’s population who are informed (i.e the weekday readership of The Australian newspaper).

Let’s see how much coverage is given to the story later today by Australia’s mainstream electronic media, which usually broadcasts entertainment masquerading as journalism. Put a celebrity on a glacier and the story might get coverage.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation may run the story because they have enough adequately trained journalists to overcome their pro-AGW bias.

If the ABC does broadcast, combined with the readership of The Australian, that’ll mean about 20% of the Australian population is properly informed.

Watch the commercial TV news tonight to see if the story has any penetration with the voters, and thus any influence on the politicians.

assassinationscience.com doesn’t do much better, it replaces them with a funky question mark, at least that what I see. In my file (from the Russian .ZIP file), I have “Jill Jäger” which should print as “Jill Jäger”. There are several international characters in that file, it’s a bit unfortunate that people can’t read the files as they were intended to be seen.

The revelation is the latest crack to appear in the scientific consensus over climate change.

I’ll take what I can get, but I fail to see why this glacier fabrication is more important than the ipcc allowing ~5/7ths of the World to not follow its Kyoto Protocols, etc..

When I first looked at glaciers several years ago, I found that the NASA web site itself said that there were about 162,000 glaciers on Earth and that only a few could be studied per year, so that not very much was known about them.

“Most astronomers believe that the sun has completed our latest cycle and has begun Cycle Number 24. It’s not clear exactly when the new cycle began. Solar forecasters in early 2006 predicted that Cycle 23 would end in late 2006 or early 2007, with a quick return to a very active or perhaps record solar maximum in 2010 or early 2011. But the sun didn’t get the memo. The solar minimum for Cycle 23 dragged on. The slumbering sun was not roused through 2008. In fact, the quiet sun in 2008 set some impressive records. For example, there was a 50-year low in solar wind pressure and a 12-year low in solar irradiance, resulting in a 6 percent drop in ultraviolet light.

As 2009 began, the sleepy sun was not showing any signs of waking. New predictions in early 2009 shifted the maximum of Cycle 24 to 2012. By May 2009, it was clear the sun still wasn’t acting according to plan. Cycle 24 maximum is now predicted to occur in May 2013.”

Fawning media reported this, agog, but quickly thought better of revealing stupidity in such pure form, apparently fearing this deliquescent fathead might impact prospects for a New World Order in Copenhagen come December. Nonetheless, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains a fan of Ozymandias. His good buddy Rajendra Pauchauri probably raked in a few 50-grand speaking fees on that one… as for TERI et al., nary a peep that railroad engineers and “climate change” are not a winning combination.

“Voodoo science,” says Pachauri? Hey, just who is the witchdoctor here? Who is the Dr. Caligari in this piece?

Reminds me a little of the story of the small town newspaper editor who found a reporter’s note saying a farmer had had 2,035 pigs stolen overnight. It seemed like an awful lot of pigs, so the editor called up the farmer and asked, “Did you have 2,035 pigs taken last night?”
The farmer replied, “Yeth, I did.”

It’s time Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC Chairman to resign, and a more open and honest person appointed to clean up the mess. If he won’t go voluntarily then the must be sacked. It should also be investigated to see if he can be charged with some criminal act given the money involved.

It may be a long bow, but right now it’s hard not to be reminded of Classical Athens:
– the misdirection of democracy by factions leading to a decline in the vigour of the polity
– the Sophists’ elevation of rhetoric and appearance over argument to truth
– the witchhunt against Socrates for speaking against conventional wisdom and for following argument wherever it leads.

Using the WWF as a source? Sadly it seems half (?) our academy has embraced Sophism, and we are reliving the conflicts of the end of the 4th Century BCE.

We can only hope the battle doesn’t have the same outcome. China as Sparta, anyone?

“Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

It does not matter if Hasnain ever asserted this or not. The IPCC claims to be based on peer reviewed literature, he could have stood on top of the Empire State Building and shouted it with a megaphone, if it wasn’t peer reviewed it should not have been in the IPCC report, an official statement should not be needed.

…Seems like a great place to link to Patrick Michael’s piece on glaciers…

“..Two major lessons come from this study. One, any argument that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were confined to Europe is clearly not supported by the evidence from the Himalayan region. Two, glaciers have advanced and retreated many times in the past with absolutely no connection to humans and/or the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. To suddenly pronounce that glaciers are responding to human activities seems to disregard their behavior during periods when human activities certainly had no impact whatsoever.”

“The report credited Hasnain’s 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. ”

Much apart from formal scientific review, they don’t even appear to have bothered with basic fact checks. Are we to take it then that the WWF is prepared to include any unchecked claims which suit its purpose into “campaigning” reports, that is material intended to persuade people of their cause?

“Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.”

Also the IPCC appears prepared to grab any report which sounds scary enough and use it without looking too closely at its credentials, as long as it suits their purpose.

It all raises serious doubts about the integrity of these organisations.

Even my 80 year old mother remarked to me earlier today that she was heard on a MSM radio station that there has been a slight cooling since 2001.

PaulH (16:31:45) :

Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, “many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly, without having their professional careers ruined.”

What’s the sound of backing out quietly? ;->

What’s the sound of backing out quietly? – The door hitting their Ar$e as they make their way out.

“If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

This is absolutely unbelievable. Prof. Lal seems to think that it is acceptable to continue to assert this unless he gets an official statement saying that it wasn’t asserted. I find it disgusting that someone who has received a professorship thinks it is acceptable to base important conclusions on opinions expressed in a magazine article. Looks like the IPCC has decided that opinions of scientists are now facts and that they are now entitled to their own facts.

IT WAS a dramatic declaration: glaciers across much of the Himalayas may be gone by 2035. When New Scientist heard this comment from a leading Indian glaciologist, we reported it. That was in 1999. The claim later appeared in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report – and it turns out that our article is the primary published source.

The glaciologist has never submitted what he says was a speculative comment for peer review – and most of his peers strongly dispute it. So how could such speculation have become an IPCC “finding” which has, moreover, recently been defended by the panel’s chairman? We are entitled to an explanation, before rumour and doubt compound the damage to the image of climate science already inflicted by the leaked “climategate” emails.

Watching the way the UN works one can only wonder how long it will be before they go into attack mode and accuse poor Ramesh of “carelesness in publishing scientific research that was poorly documented and needlessly called into question the excellent work of reputable scientists who have so carefully documented a matter in which the science is clearly settled”

The MSM is getting the hang of things.
The smell of rats caught in the very webs they have spun is like honey to a bear. The backpeddling and CYA attempts are truly remarkable.
The smart ones grabbed a life-preserver and bailed 6 mos. ago.

The key point about this latest “crack,” as about the preceding embarrassments for AGW, is the cloud it casts over the trustworthiness of the consensus-makers, not the degree to which it undermines the case for CAGW. Its effect on the latter is minor, as warmists will be sure to point out.

But that’s not the heart of the matter. The core of the issue is that, before we commit to divert trillions, we must have complete faith in the scientists and institutes who are advising this course. That faith has been lost, so an independent scientific “court” must re-examine the entire controversy, and give a hearing to contrarians, if popular consent is to be obtained.

PS: By trying to win the battle against the skeptics by “piling on” with phony tangibles, the alarmists have lost the war, which depends on an intangible, trust. The revelations of their sloppiness, bias, and bullying, however “unimportant” in a tangible sense, are deadly in their effect on perceptions of their trustworthiness.

I recall reading on this site that there was a study which predicted the demise of the Himalayan glaciers by 2350, and that there was a typo in one of these review articles which transposed the 0, making the predicted year 2035.
I tried a site search and didn’t find it.
Am I nuts, does anybody else remember this?

The media are going to back out of AGW with a simple excuse — the IPCC misled us. I think we’re going to see the start of the IPCC being thrown under the bus regularly over the next weeks and months. Then the media will do what they do best — muckrake and the IPCC will be history. Of course the media will forget to remind joe public that they (the media) themselves weren’t doing their job in the first place by doing no fact checking but parroting the IPCC.

“The MSM is getting the hang of things.
The smell of rats caught in the very webs they have spun is like honey to a bear. The backpeddling and CYA attempts are truly remarkable.
The smart ones grabbed a life-preserver and bailed 6 mos. ago.”

Yes, but the sheeple have not gotten the memo yet. It will take one of their prophets being crucified on TV for them to switch to a new religion.

It is by a photo from space of Mt Kilimanjaro. The text reads “Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres, and may disappear altogether in certain regions of our planet, such as the Himalayas, by 2030”, with the reference being IPCC AR4 exec summary p 5.

Although NASA doesn’t make any claims for the Mt Kilimanjaro snow cover decrease, they do imply that it is due to climate change since it is on a page titled “Evidence” with a subtitle of Climate Change: How Do We Know.

Apparently NASA knows by reading IPCC, who knows by reading World Wildlife Foundation reports, who know by reading a magazine article where one scientist’s speculation is quoted as fact.

The problem with arriving at the concensus is that the current station mix is heavily biased and tampered with.
The datasets have been mangled beyond recognition, which is why the public has become painfully aware of how badly thier own weather has been manipulated. They know they are being lied to.

The rural station network has to be re-established.
It will probably take a decade or more to get a handle on where the real global temp lies.
The people who misused the public trust have to go, and there are many storied institutions that need serious housecleaning.
And last, but not least, public trust will have to be earned, and that will take time. No more hottest month ever when folks in the better part of an entire hemisphere are shaking in the cold.

Here is the email that I sent to Times editors on the day that they reported the IPCC’s false and unfounded predictions on Himalayan Glaciers in all alarming details. That day the BBC posted a report exposing the falsity of the very same claims the Times was reporting as scientific fact.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035″. The authors deny the claims.”

One can only hope the Times Online would be less deferential to and more inquisitive of the ‘authoritative IPCC anthropogenic global warming alarmism.”

It is inexcusable that it took so long for the Times and other mainstream media to recognise and correct the error. Incidentally, many people noted the conflicting reports from the Times and the BBC on the boards of WUWT, Real Climate and other blogs. Why does it make a big splash now?

My understanding is that receding glaciers are less a sign of climate warming than a sign of lower precipitation. Any glacier expert care to explain whether or not I am wrong.

NOT an expert but dim recollection from geology class was neither factor on its own, but how they combine. More snow in winter than what melts in summer = growth. Less snow in winter than melts in summer = shrink. So in theory, you could have a warmer year, but if it snows SO much that the amount that melts is LESS, you still get growth. Conversely, you could have a cooler than normal year, but get so little snow that it still shrinks.

°I would compare the IPCC to a great ship setting out on it’s maiden voyage, full of arrogant belief in its unsinkable theory, and dismissing any suggestion of prudence or caution.
The name of this ship? – The Titanic.

History will show that Landsea has made entirely the right decision to abandon the ship.

It’s easier to agree than deny.
That probably comes from an exaggeration of the time when Simon denied Yeshua three times.

For some reason , it’s getting easier to become a denier and skeptic. That’s probably because deniers have a lot more company now. The people that agreed with AGW, were there because of a vested interest or by just the type of people who gravitate toward activism of that type. The rest really didn’t care either way. But the blogs and alternative media like Alex Jones and a ton of other sites, reached and have gotten to many of those who couldn’t care less and now do care, and proclaimed they are deniers. The number of active deniers now outweighs the number of active AGW agreers.

“So what has gone wrong at the Met Office? This is an organisation with some 1,500 employees and an annual budget of £170million, yet, year after year, their predictions have been less reliable than those of an alcoholic astrologer.

Some critics of the organisation have pointed to the fact that a former chairman was largely responsible for instigating the body responsible for kicking off the whole manmade climate-change theory back in the 1990s. His successor was formerly head of the World Wildlife Fund, so it’s a pretty safe bet that he is an ardent believer in the gospel according to Al Gore.”

We have people in universities studying in science fields who do not have a grasp of 7th grade maths.”

That’s really quite interetsting, and strangely scary at the same time. Reminds me when I worked for a rather large, well known, computer company. Every summer we’d have Univercity level electronics students pass through on summer work experience. I recall one guy who didn’t know what an AVO was nor knew how to use a multimeter. Fairly fundamental stuff.

I wonder how many of the numerous effects of global warming are so shoddily researched. The economic models are junk, the citation for glacial extinction is one “Dr. Mrs. Cleo”, and what about the extinctions? It seems to me that I could do as well with a twenty sided dice and a piece of graph paper.

BINGO’s — big international non-governmental organizations. Joined at the hip with BIB’s — big investment banks. Funded by taxpayers (yes they are!). The Keepers of the Revolving Door. Capable of bankrupting entire nations.

We will win, but it probably won’t be this week. Because most Americans (the main villain) won’t know about the Himalaya fraud. The main media will not report it, and if they do, only in passing. A recent poll said most Americans didn’t believe in AGW, but most also knew nothing about Climategate. The reason, the main media did not report it. This past week was a huge UN/AGW/Soros/Carbon trading/Hedge fund jamboree in NYC, and the guys sent out a list of demands, including that we hurry up with some criminal scams they can make money off. The Climategate emails of April 2002 state Pachauri was a plant of the fossil fuel industry via George Bush (a little joke on the left). 2 UK newspapers have mentioned organized crime’s involvement in carbon trading. We will win eventually, but it may not be this week.

The Times headline (finally) has a nice ring to it; i.e.:
”World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown”

And it’s not just that the world was mislead:
It is the complete lack of what any reputable technical body would consider fundamental due diligence, in making sure they have a solid and well-documented factual basis before making a prediction like this in the first place.

Contemplate again this truly astounding snippet from thread start:

”. . . . Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist . . . . has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research.”

Not supported by **ANY** formal research ?!?!…
IOW. . .: What: He looked up at some local glaciers one day and decided it felt like they were melting ??..

UNBELIEVABLE !! . . . This is ”Keystone Cops” psuedo-science by the IPCC.

“If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

What if he doesn’t do this what if he says (as he did) that he did indeed say this? What in blazes does that have to do with it? Isn’t the qusestion “does proper research support the assertion? ” If not shouldn’t the statement and conclusions be retracted and have NOTHING to do with what he said. In fact shouldn’t a rediculous claim like this have been checked before it ever got into any report?

Well folks, keep your records in order and safe and your definitions clear. The spin and a**-covering has commenced on global proportions. This time the winners will be those who can keep the history intact, readily referenced and available. The losers can otherwise slink away to scam another day.

A number of scientists who backed the CO2 based AGW theory are now suffering from buyer’s remorse. According to atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, “many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly, without having their professional careers ruined.”

What’s the sound of backing out quietly? ;->

Paul

I predict with a high degree of confidance that you will be able to ascertain the doppler effect.

The WWF have a lot to answer for. They have been active in this scheme all over the world. There needs to be an investigation and some light shone on their activities.”

I agree Lynne – I spent some time recently checking them out – for example they mention that Australia has lost more wildlife than any other country yet when you check it out we haven’t lost any mammals since 1950! we haven’t lost a bird on the mainland since 1926, the birds we have lost have been on Lord Howe Island and Kangaroo Island – we may have lost a couple of frogs but they may turn up somewhere as there’s not a lot of people out looking for them.

When you check out the Board and the Governors it’s a who’s who of greenie environmentalists. yet they are always putting out AGW support papers.

Something similar happened in the 1880’s or 1890’s in the US, where widespread heat wave of 100-110 F gave way in one week to widespread frosts. I should try to find it. I believe it was in an AMS Journal.

“Parts of northern China are seeing their harshest winter in decades, with Beijing this month receiving its heaviest one-day snowfall in 59 years. Temperatures in the capital were due to rise above freezing this week.

Herders moved thousands of others to safer pastures at lower altitudes ahead of the latest storm front, which is expected to last through Wednesday.

Temperatures in parts of Xinjiang are set to plunge to minus 45 degrees (minus 43 Celsius) by midweek, according to Xinjiang Meteorological Station forecaster Wei Rongqing.

Wei said snow was falling in the region’s Altay district, where accumulations had already risen to 3 feet (94 centimeters). Altay lies in China’s extreme northwestern corner, 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) northwest of Beijing, the capital.

“Livestock raising has been hit hard. Both wild animals and livestock haven’t been able to find food, but now forage has been allocated by the central government,” Wei said. Some 500,000 people in total were affected by the harsh weather, he said. The figure includes those who suffered property damage and supply shortages or were isolated by snow drifts and icy roads.

Direct economic losses were being estimated at 300 million yuan ($44 million) as of Thursday and were expected to continue rising, Wei said.

Parts of northern China are seeing their harshest winter in decades, with Beijing this month receiving its heaviest one-day snowfall in 59 years. Temperatures in the capital were due to rise above freezing this week.”

crosspatch (20:22:41) :
Anthony, I believe this might be the root of the problem.

We have people in universities studying in science fields who do not have a grasp of 7th grade maths.

We have people designing math curricula who self admittedly never were much good with numbers. Thus nowadays the primary focus is to ensure that none of the little mouthbreathers ever has to suffer the indignity of being told their answer to a homework problem is wrong, lest their self esteem be mortally damaged. Then, of course, we have to cut back the class time devoted to irrelevant and archaic concepts like the 3Rs to make time for numerous showings of AIT,sensitivity and diversity seminars, and learning hymns of praise to Obama. If one was inclined to a conspiratorial mindset, one might look at the way that leftist dominated academia has systematically dumbed down American public education and be moved to suspect that students continually declining achievement was actually the goal they were aiming for, so that they would be more susceptible to their ongoing propaganda efforts. But certainly no one could be that callous and cynical, could they? But It is interesting to note that one of the leading lights of modern education policy in the US is a certain Mr. Ayers, who after a successful career blowing up people and things, has moved on to doing his best to ensure that the primary goal of the schools should be to instill the proper revolutionary mindset in it’s charges, He’s been so successful in his efforts that a fair number of schools of education have, in the last few years, attempted to include, as a requirement for admission to their programs, embrace of the proper attitudes regarding racial and social justice, the evils of Western Civilization in general and capitalism in particular, and most particularly as practiced by Old White Guys.
One would think that such success must be the product of complete singleminded dedication to a single purpose, but Mr. Ayers has a well rounded life in which he is able to make time in his busy schedule to host coffee klatches to boost the careers of up and coming political candidates who just happen to live in his neighborhood.

Just to advise that the msm’s only national paper in Australia (and the most balanced of the msm) “The Australian” has today, 18 January 2010, devoted three full page broadsheet columns to “Melting claim based on speculation – UN’s BLUNDER ON GLACIERS EXPOSED”.

The Australian also published Viscount Monckton’s open letter “Mr Rudd your misguided warming policies are killing millions” on 6 Jan 2010. He and Prof Ian Plimer are shortly to begin a capital city speaking tour, which will be very well attended.

Incredibly, the usual nut blogs are still claiming the Himalaya glaciers will be gone in 20 years. …Or something like that. Maybe after a rest…. Or something like that too!……It never ends.
Even when it is gone.

BTW, regarding Mr. Pachauri’s picture, whenever I see it one question always pops into my head. If Tommy Chong had a Dorian Gray like portrait of himself hanging in the closet, is this what it would look like?

At least the Telegraph story reveals a little of the sham that is Pachauri’s TERI. Its UK charity front is reported as having to re-work its accounts. Here’s hoping the MSM now continue digging and the effrontery is exposed for what it is.

I would encourage you all to contact CNN and inform them they need to post a retraction of their Oct. 5th, 2009 story where they repeat the IPCC Himalayan-2035 claim, and iterate (rather scarily) on hypothetical repercussions:

“Even though some authorities in India do not consider the phenomenon to be particularly alarming, there is an increased understanding that the melting of Himalayan snows is real and needs to be taken seriously.”

Apparently, a convoluted game of “telephone” from Syed Hasnain to The New Scientist to WWF to IPCC is an “increased understanding.”

The most telling point quoted above is Muraru Lal saying, “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, [THEN] I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

The A in AR4 stands for “assessment”. The assessment is supposed to be done by the IPCC and Professor Lal. The IPCC is not meant to delegate assessment back to the authors of what is being assessed.

Michael, it just goes to show the more rubbish that comes out of the IPCC the less credible they are; that’s assuming they have any credibility left on the world stage. It will be interesting to see what other scare they will come up with. Also, we should be getting an update of their computer model predictions – I think later this year. The disparity between modeled and observed is so large now, and getting larger by the month that it will be interesting to see how they will try to cover it up. Of course they will just dig an even bigger hole for themselves, which is good.

That said both pages were buried in the expanse of their website, and (not surprisingly) neither pages were given any links from the front page or from their Science/Environment section. (It was the run up to Copenhagen and they wouldn’t want tio upset the warmists would they?).

OT – But potentially significant. The sea ice in the Bohai Sea in North China is the worst in 3 decades and yet the Arctic sea ice extent is below the average of the last 20 years. Further the NSIDC map shows barely any sea ice in the seas to the north of the Bohai Sea. Whats up with that?

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — PetroChina Co. took steps to reduce the impact of the worst sea ice in three decades on its oilfields in the Bohai region where shipping activities were disrupted. The weather was forecast to deteriorate this week. At its thickest, the ice cover in Bohai Bay measures 1 meter (3.3 feet) deep, according to the State Oceanic Administration. The freezing may extend to the southern part of the bay, according to Beijing-based Global times said.

As much as I greatly appreciate the Emily Litela link, I don’t think it will work for Al Gore. First, he wouldn’t ever do any such thing, and second, even if he did, it won’t placate the angry mobs with torches and pitch forks that would descend on the studio.

It is by a photo from space of Mt Kilimanjaro. The text reads “Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres, and may disappear altogether in certain regions of our planet, such as the Himalayas, by 2030″, with the reference being IPCC AR4 exec summary p 5.

Although NASA doesn’t make any claims for the Mt Kilimanjaro snow cover decrease, they do imply that it is due to climate change since it is on a page titled “Evidence” with a subtitle of Climate Change: How Do We Know.

Apparently NASA knows by reading IPCC, who knows by reading World Wildlife Foundation reports, who know by reading a magazine article where one scientist’s speculation is quoted as fact.”

Mr. Rajendra Pachauri was dumping on a paper that utilized
data drawn from numerous University, College Departmental
studies, Institute reports, and colloquiums done over the
years. There are 18 citations toward the end, most of them
peer-reviewed (but not by the IPCC “Team”) and written by
the folks who have been studying the Himalayan glaciers up
close and personally for years.

The paper is non-judgmental when it comes to climate change.
That’s one reason the information is such a threat to the IPCC
hubris concerning Himalayan glaciers. The second problem
for Mr. Pachauri is that it makes him look like he hasn’t got a
clue as to what’s been going on in his own backyard.

I suspect most Watts Up With That readers haven’t had the
opportunity to read the PDF format 60 page report Mr. Pachauri
raga’d on.

Here’s the difficult-to-find link to the Government of India’s
Ministry of Environment and Forests Discussion Paper,
“Himalayan Glaciers – A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies,
Glacial Retreat and Climate Change” edited by V.K.Raina, the
former Deputy Director of the Geological Survey of India:

Alert !
Recreantly I’ve looked into the Southern Greenland temperature changes. The numbers if true are indeed alarming, if they are ‘value added’, than someone was rather generous with the ‘value’ added.
Here are graphs showing 6 locations, up to mid 1990’s, there is no great deal of excitement, the east coast warming, west coast cooling, and the southern tip more or less unchanged. Suddenly around 1994-5, whole hell gets loose at the two west coast locations, and in the short time of 10 years, while elsewhere world is cooling, average annual temperatures go up by almost an incredible +3 degrees in location of Egedesminde (68.7N, 52.8E), and a somewhat more modest +2C in
Nuuk /Godthaab (64.2N, 51.8W), a bit further south.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC4.htm
It is an ironic coincidence, that the line indicating these sudden temperature changes goes trough a town aptly named Alert!

Wonderful! IPCC own goals proliferating and dominoes keep falling.!
A new survey of the New Zealand public by the Herald newspaper there reports a rapidly rising disbelief in AGW.
OT, but an old friend volunteered to drive a relief supply truck during the Balkan conflict; he came out of that experience with a total disgust for and mistrust of the UN.

To quote from the article:
“…The revelation is a major blow to the credibility of the IPCC which was set up to provide political leaders with clear, independent advice on climate change.

It follows the “Climategate” email row in which scientists at the University of East Anglia appeared to have manipulated data to strengthen the case for man-made climate change.

Dr Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: “The IPCC review process has been shown on numerous occasions to lack transparency and due diligence. Its work is controlled by a tightly knit group of individuals who are completely convinced that they are right. As a result, conflicting data and evidence, even if published in peer reviewed journals, are regularly ignored, while exaggerated claims, even if contentious or not peer-reviewed, are often highlighted in IPCC reports. Not surprisingly, the IPCC has lost a lot of credibility in recent years. It is also losing the trust of more and more governments who are no longer following its advice – as the Copenhagen summit showed.”…”

The IPCC not only has bad scientists but bad translators. Look at this from their home page: “The IPCC has started the works on the preparation of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). We are currently looking for experts which can act as authors:” These people are really third rate.

Why don’t you colonials get some copies of BBC’s (good old) wonderful “Yes Minister” & see how the Civil Service really works. Never have a Public Enquiry unless you know the outcome at the start. Always appoint the “right man” for the position. So, the Golden Rule is, NEVER put someone in charge of anything unless they don’t know anything about it! For example, the head of the Met Office used to work for WWF. He knows Sweet Fanny Adams about weather forecasting, but then again, that wasn’t the issue was it?

Things over here in Blighty seem to be surfacing, scepticism seems to also be surfacing here & there. People want to speak out but are frightened to do so I suspect. Cracks, huh, more like gaping chasms to me.

‘Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”.
Assert !? Is that all is necessary for the IPCC to publish reports which support their agenda. That says it all.

“…It was also revealed that the IPCC’s controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, described as “the world’s top climate scientist”, is a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics and no formal climate science qualifications.

Dr Pachauri was yesterday accused of a conflict of interest after it emerged he has a network of business interests that attract millions of pounds in funding thanks to IPCC policies. One of them, The Energy Research Institute, has a London office and is set to receive up to £10million from British taxpayers over the next five years in the form of grants from the Department for International Development. Dr Pachauri denies any conflict of interest arising from his various roles.

Yesterday, critics accused the IPCC of boosting the man-made global warming theory to protect a multi-million pound industry. Climate scientist Peter Taylor said: “I am not surprised by this news. A vast bureaucracy and industry has been built up around this theory. There is too much money in it for the IPCC to let it wither.”

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, a glacier specialist at Cambridge University, said: “The average glacier is 1,000ft thick so to melt one even at 15ft a year would take 60 years. That is a lot faster than anything we are seeing now so the idea of losing it all by 2035 is unrealistically high.”..” etc.

“When the ice is thick enough it starts to flow under the force of
gravity. Amountain glacier flows mainly downhill, but can flow uphill in places, as in the rotational flow that creates cup-shaped cirques. In an ice sheet the flow is from the depositional high centre towards the edges of the ice sheet. The flow of ice is generally slow, as expressed in the common metaphor “glacially slow”, but the rate is variable. The Upernivek Glacier in Greenland flows at about 40 metres per day, which is as much as a smaller Alpine glacier covers in a year.
When the ice reaches a lower altitude or lower latitude where
temperature is higher it starts to melt and evaporate. (Evaporation and melting together are called ablation, but for simplicity we shall use ‘melting’ from now on). If growth and melting balance, the glacier appears to be ‘stationary’. If precipitation exceeds melting”.

The above from a paper by Ollier Paine “Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are not Collapsing”. You can read the rest at the SPPI site

Apparently the AVO is no more, nobody makes the mechanical parts anymore.

The US version was probably the military TS-352.”

Correct. However, they were still in use at the time I was working for said computer comany (Early 80’s) because they were more accurate for certain work. Never the less, anyone studying electronics should have a grasp of what A V O means.

What a chain of evidence..
A claim based on a telephone speculation morphs into a New Scientist article which in turn becomes IPCC “fixed (er, settled? no, fixed is right) science”.
No one comes out of this untarnished and what does this do for the New Scientist’s reputation? It is about as trustworthy now as those newspapers at the supermarket check out which proclaim “Elvis abducted by Aliens”.

Someone queries what the WWF has to do with this?
Good question.

What does the WWF have to do with AGW and why has its chairman managed to get himself in control of the MET Office? and why is the MET in such a state that the BBC may not renew its contract? (I suspect this is partly the BBC covering it’s a**e and looking for a face saving way to justify its own bias by blaming the MET. The MET, in turn, with contracts like the BBC under threat and finance for its super computers being squeezed, may turn on its own 25% bonus/pay rise chairman as their own scape goat).
Why has the RSPB been so complacent about windfarms in the UK and only now, with 1 in 6 areas of outstanding beauty or sites of special scientific interest at risk of becoming wind farms do they and FOE object?

The real message from all of this is how just a few like minded people can take control.
Just a few people in the US and the UK control the temperature records. It is from the UAE that we had a scientist who manipulated the New Zealand temperature data. Just a few “scientists” at the IPCC, those few happy to agree and who did not sue to have their names removed, and really, despite the many people involved at the IPCC it was the very few who had control of the report writing that needed to be fellow travellers.
What about environmental lobby groups like Friends of the Earth? how many activists does it need to take control and subvert the organisation? FOE and other similar groups then become acredited NGOs (non governmental organisations) at policy making groups within the UN such as MARPOL, the marine pollution legislation policy making group. FOE is working hand in glove with Senator Boxer and thus they influence national governments.

This is a lesson in how democratic processes are corrupted and neutralised just as much as it is a lesson in how science is corrupted – by a few activists.
Oh and don’t let’s forget how the climategate emails reveal they manipulated the peer review process and supressed un-favourable science and how a certain gentleman is said to have manipulated Wikipedia entries….
Add them all up and instead of an army of tens of thousands needed to create the new world order of a global government (as envisaged by Maurice Strong), you have a need for perhaps less than 100 hard core players and the sympathy of some others.
The rest you rule by fear. Fear of losing their jobs, as one editor did, fear of losing their man’s of making a living… how many scientists had to stay quiet or risk losing their grants or who dared not oppose the tenets of the new religion.
There is a lesson to be learned but I doubt we’ll learn it. All we can hope is that each time this type of lunacy threatens is that wheels will fall off before it is too late.

However, history teaches us that we should not expect that to happen all that often. There are too many examples of how democratic government has been replaced by totalitarian regimes.

And while there may be a bit of wheel wobble at the moment, this juggernaut is still rolling. Why? it is getting out of the control f those who set it rolling, the lure of big money has taken over. Carbon Credits, the fraud in Belgian, the prospects of the great Al Gore being a carbon billionaire, the questions surrounding the IPCC chairman’s financial interests.. the market is full of Carbon credit scams. It isn’t about the environment or a new world order, it is now about the money. All those protesters in Copenhagen were protesting about the direction a sudden lurch has sent their juggernaut off in. So that is also why we here James Hansen hoping Copenhagen would fail….

All we can hope is that enough people get angry enough to put a stop to the whole charade before it is too late, before the damage is irreversible.

What is really worrying is that this time it is within the heart of democracy, the US an UK goverements, (Less surprise at the EU) where this cancer has struck hardest and where there is the most to lose.
AGW is a trojan horse that exploits liberal thinking guilt complexes and which is very near destroying whatever democracy there is.
In the end, this isn’t about the climate. The climate is simply a vehicle. Quite how it started or how it all gained momentum or when it evolved from idle speculation into a full blown theory is irrelevant. But somewhere along the line it became a vehicle for a new world government and then it became a cash machine. Which of those is the more dangerous? that’s up to you to decide.
Do I overstate the situation?
I hope so, but what I really fear is that I do not and that we may not have the time to put a stop to it all. And if we do put a stop to it, will anyone audit the death toll? How many specie at risk through bio-fuel cropping? How much of our landscape scarred by wind farms, how much damage to our economies? Have we put beyond reach that all important condition in the energy market when we naturally progress from fossil fuels to fusion as we did from coal to oil (without ever running out of coal) so that once our fossil fuels really are gone we will have nothing? But most importantly, how many actual lives will have been lost? will it put malaria deaths that resulted from banning DDT into the minor leagues? How many people will die of cold because they can’t afford the inflated energy prices in a hard winter? How many poor people with already short, disease and starvation prone lives will be pushed over the edge by the high marine fuel costs resulting from “eco” alarmist propaganda to the point where such exports as they could produce can no longer be afforded?

And how many of those behind this scam, who knowingly cynically helped manipulate public opinion and influence governments will lose a single night’s sleep over real deaths or real people. No Al Gore, I’ll bet and not our IPCC chairman. Not Obama and not Gordon Brown or Tony Blair or David Cameron. Not the Green party nor “Friends” (what a joke) of the Earth nor Greenpeace.

And will any of them be prosecuted for fraud? Well, maybe one or two scapegoats. Maybe Phil Jones. Maybe Michael Mann, if they can make anything stick. But probably it will be as dificult to bring any of the major players to book as it is to get George Bush or Tony Blair called to account for the second IRAQ war. There will always be a scapegoat somewhere, some patsy to be thrown to the lions while the rest escape with their money.

OT but you have to see this. Danny Glover the actor pontificating on the Haitian disaster. Apparently its a CLIMATE disaster and its all the fault of world leaders who failed to agree at Copenhagen! Well I never. . . .

We are in the process of throwing trillions at controlling Global Warming through CO2 taxes, yet Pachauri, the head of the UN’s IPCC, who supposedly is leading the world on Climate Change, is not even on a salary at the IPCC.

Wouldn’t you think the job would least be full time and come with a salary and that person would be involved in no other business than that of the IPCC’s for the sake of transparency. Afterall the IPCC warns we are nearing that crucial “tipping point”. :)

If I remember correctly, WUWT carried a report about this error a few weeks ago. I believe the original date was 2350, which somehow mutated into 2035. It may have been an honest mistake, but such an absurd claim should have been picked up by the ‘experts’. Unfortunately, so many of these experts are blinded by the AGW religion that absurd claims like this are likely to pass unquestioned. Actually, this might be changing now as the media are definitely taking more note of what the sceptics have been saying. This may be a very beneficial result of Climategate.

Today’s printed Dailly Telegraph has a report which blames the IPCC for this error. On the same page is a report that the Met Office may lose its BBC contract due to its poor forecasting record.

There’s an obvious link between these two reports: both organisations, which are obsessed by their belief in man-made climate change, are guilty of misleading the world on a huge scale.
Chris

so are people going to start “finding out” all the other dirty secrets the greens don’t want them to know? like how wind power and fluorescent lights are terrible for the environment? or how DDT is the best, safest, and most environmentally friendly pesticide ever invented?

So what are we going to do about it now that’s it’s past the tipping point? Ask the China, India and the US to contract their economies by 99%? Even that won’t be enough as it’s too late. Can the New Scientist be any more stupid? It’s more like reading a fiction magazine.

That’s about 2% of Australia’s population who are informed (i.e the weekday readership of The Australian newspaper).

Let’s see how much coverage is given to the story later today by Australia’s mainstream electronic media, which usually broadcasts entertainment masquerading as journalism. Put a celebrity on a glacier and the story might get coverage.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation may run the story because they have enough adequately trained journalists to overcome their pro-AGW bias.

If the ABC does broadcast, combined with the readership of The Australian, that’ll mean about 20% of the Australian population is properly informed.

Watch the commercial TV news tonight to see if the story has any penetration with the voters, and thus any influence on the politicians.

Update for anybody interested … neither the ABC or any of the commercial TV stations in Western Australia ran the glacier story at all in their 6pm news. They all led with Perth’s hot weather over the past two days.

Snow in NSW in the middle of summer? Didn’t happen.

i.e. about 2% to 3% of Australians know there are doubts about the IPCC claims re glaciers so, for the vast majority of people in this country, melting glaciers are still irrefutable proof that AGW is happening. Why? Because I have(n’t) seen it on the media!

It was 96 degrees F here in Brisbane today, but just down the road in the mountains it was zero in places.”

Yes, a hot one today. But I noticed with interest that the news channels, while running with their ‘hot weather’ stories, managed to hold back from getting some talking head to say ‘climate change blah blah warming blah blah emissions’. In fact I didn’t hear climate change mentioned once, which warmed (forgive my pun) my heart.

On another note, they managed to lead with the headline ‘hottest day in 2 years’. Wow, a whole 2 years! Talk about unprecedented warming! You have to go back to 2008 to see temperatures this high! Can’t they just report the news normally? Or is a hot day just an excuse for the cameraman to go down to the beach and film some young women in bikinis?

Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”

So if Hasnain asserts that it is a correct presumption it will be kept in future IPCC assessments. This is irrespective of whether the result was obtained through diligent research or through casting knuckle bones at midnight on the dark of the moon.

There is also no guarantee that it will be excluded from the next report if Hasnain asserts it is incorrect, only that a recommendation would be made to not include it. Past experience of discredited Hockey sticks and IPCC reports makes me believe that model parameters and data measurements are being adjusted as we speak so as to include similar claims in the next report.

Update for anybody interested … neither the ABC or any of the commercial TV stations in Western Australia ran the glacier story at all in their 6pm news. They all led with Perth’s hot weather over the past two days.

Snow in NSW in the middle of summer? Didn’t happen.

i.e. about 2% to 3% of Australians know there are doubts about the IPCC claims re glaciers so, for the vast majority of people in this country, melting glaciers are still irrefutable proof that AGW is happening. Why? Because I have(n’t) seen it on the media!”

The important thing is that if it were true it would have had a severe impact on hundreds of millions of people. It was probably the scariest monster of AGW as it was within most people’s lifetime. Now the monster is dead, and in such a farcical way, perhaps the politicians will be less scared, come out from under the bedclothes, and start using their brains.

Now, wherever you look at the AGW case, all you find is a sea of propaganda. And that is one sea-level which IS rising rapidly!

…For example, the head of the Met Office used to work for WWF. He knows Sweet Fanny Adams about weather forecasting, but then again, that wasn’t the issue was it?”

Actually Alan does not go far enough. Seven of the eleven Met Office Board members have direct connections with “social housing”, which in other parts of the world is known as “municipal housing”. At least two of the remaining four have have indirect connections (through planning) with social housing. At least three of them are known for their connections with Mr. Brown and the ruling Labour party and research would probably show that all of them are supporters of the Labour party. They answer to a Labour Minister, and probably are dependant on him or his predecessors for their appointments.

None of them has any relevant meterological experience and there are only two who have high level experience of running a commercial company.

None of them has any significant computer or statistical expertise despite the fact that the Met Office boasts that its climate and other forecasts are based on models using one of the largest computers in the world.

There are, almost certainly a number of excellent meteorologists in the Met Office but how can we expect them to risk their livelihoods by being off message in their medium term and long term forecasts

“Or is a hot day just an excuse for the cameraman to go down to the beach and film some young women in bikinis?”

As a former news cameraman in Sydney, I can vouch for the validity of this statement! Many a time on a slow, hot news day we’d head down to Manly or Bondi for a “weather” story. The obligatory “topless” shot always made it into the nightly bulletin.

“If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. ” The IPCC only attached medium confidence (About 5 out of 10 chance) to it’s general Asia findings (which is WG2/Ch 10 in its entirety, and doesn’t even address 10.6 in its Executive Summary for chapter 10. So, if this is “one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research,” it sure gives me a lot of confidence in the rest of the research.

Since CO2 isn’t the reason for global warming, what’s the problem? Or more to the point, what is it that humans can do to stop it? Why not just bask in a slightly warmer climate, enjoy the bounties from improved plant growth from increased CO2, and work on bigger problems.

WWF??? New Scientist? [snip] The correction here seems rather apparent. Assemble the names of key players in government and private sector who took money from tax payers and perpetrated the AGW fraud. Appoint a Special Prosecutor, drag the ring leaders into court and prosecute under RICO and other fraud, racketeering statutes.

Catch phrase of the year around DC… “What Intelligence??”

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Tom Jefferson

Wait until winter time here in Australia. If we get anything like what is happening in the northern hemisphere now, I wonder what the news media will be saying. Blame it on global warming? They are already a laughing stock to most thinking Australians. Keep it up and they will lose lots of advertising money and go broke.

“A number of scientists who backed the CO2 based AGW theory are now suffering from buyer’s remorse. According to atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh,’many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly, without having their professional careers ruined.’”

1. Source of quotation, please.
2. Did he provides names for the “many?”

I read New Scientist back in the 80s and got turned off by all the left-wing propaganda. As a conservative, I can’t watch TV, read newspapers or magazines, enjoy a cutting edge movie (Avatar), or enjoy almost any movie at all due to all the left-wing BS we are bombarded with. I’m sick of it.

******************
Alan the Brit (01:33:47) :
Things over here in Blighty seem to be surfacing, scepticism seems to also be surfacing here & there. People want to speak out but are frightened to do so I suspect. Cracks, huh, more like gaping chasms to me.
***********
I hope you Brits can find a way to throw off the yoke of socialism. You Aussies, too! All the best to you.

OT – But potentially significant. The sea ice in the Bohai Sea in North China is the worst in 3 decades and yet the Arctic sea ice extent is below the average of the last 20 years. Further the NSIDC map shows barely any sea ice in the seas to the north of the Bohai Sea. Whats up with that?

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — PetroChina Co. took steps to reduce the impact of the worst sea ice in three decades on its oilfields in the Bohai region where shipping activities were disrupted. The weather was forecast to deteriorate this week. At its thickest, the ice cover in Bohai Bay measures 1 meter (3.3 feet) deep, according to the State Oceanic Administration. The freezing may extend to the southern part of the bay, according to Beijing-based Global times said.

I have copied this as there has been no comments to “NSIDC map shows barely any sea ice in the seas to the north of the Bohai Sea” Vs “worst sea ice in three decades”.
Could this be more Data Manipulation that needs an Investigation?

Wait until winter time here in Australia. If we get anything like what is happening in the northern hemisphere now, I wonder what the news media will be saying. Blame it on global warming? They are already a laughing stock to most thinking Australians. Keep it up and they will lose lots of advertising money and go broke.”

Errm “thinking” Aussies, that *IS* an oxymoron! A thinking Aussie, I didn’t know such beast existed, esp with cricket, tennis and other BS sports on TV!! More worried about which AFL player is defecating in a hotel corridoor than really imporatnt stuff!

I don’t know if you recall, but *LAST* winter was several weeks early, in Victoria (After the bush fires, 6 week early as I reacall) and here in NSW, about 3 weeks early. I estimate, based on my Catweasle electickery smoke globe, we will have a cold one again, this winter.

“Assert !? Is that all is necessary for the IPCC to publish reports which support their agenda. That says it all.”

Yeah, it might also say that by now the ipcc doesn’t even know how to do good PR, or that it thinks it doesn’t matter. “Just say anything that sounds possible as a valid response, and they’ll believe it since we’re the Experts. And they can’t touch us anyway.” Or it could be that the ipcc is simply falling apart.

Related anecdote: once I called the Sears official emergency hotline, after exhausting other avenues including a repair, because the top of the line gas stove I bought had a critical defect which allowed pots and pans placed on the grills to slide around and tip, somewhat like a plate within a bowl, which could have resulted in spilling hot contents on anyone around the stove, especially dangerous for children. They asked me why I was calling the emergency line for that. So I asked them what the emergency line was for, since for a regular emergency, like a fire or spill onto someone, I would have already done something else. I certainly wouldn’t be calling them right off.

When I first called the non-emergency line, they told me not to worry because people aren’t cooking at home very much any more. Right. I told them I didn’t live in Bangladesh either.

Obviously they had no clue what they were there for so they’d given me some answer that sounded good to them but didn’t make any sense. Finally I got to upper management where I threatened to deliver the stove back to them through their showroom’s front window, to get them to replace the stove with one that was safe, which they did. Then after a little while, I got 3 emergency alerts about the first stove’s serious danger.

One would hope that we can get the ipcc either correct or go out of business.

Robert Napier, the current chairman of the UK Met Office, was formerly chief executive for the WWF.

Napier’s talent for overseeing the production of climate fantasies, proven in his time at the WWF, evidently got him the Met Office job. It is no coincidence that the Met Office’s principal role is now fabricating warmist propaganda in support of the UK government’s policies on climate change.

Even the mundane sideline of forecasting the UK’s weather has been subverted in the cause of the AGW Religion. Computer models with their “warming” fiddle factors tweaked to support AGW views have produced the Met Office’s ludicrous “barbecue summer” and “mild winter” forecasts.

Ref – Steve Goddard (18:24:10) :
“Interesting watching the collapse in confidence in these institutions. CRU, The Met Office, and the IPCC.
“So far American institutions have survived relatively unscathed, but how long will that last?”
_________________

Probably a lot longer than is healthy for the country. We always think stuff like this is the fault of crazy Europeans or others in various parts of the world. Unfortunately, more than we care to believe starts in our grand old Ivy League institutions and Hollywood “academies”. The AGW mess would have been a flash in the pan if not aided and abetted by New England Persian-carpetbaggers and Left Coast anarchists. Joe the Plumber and John & Mary Doe don’t have a clue; too busy doing their own thing. “Besides,” they think, “Americans wouldn’t destroy their own country.” No, their right, Americans wouldn’t, but “americans” would.

u.k.(us) (19:52:34) : If nobody has answered it before. The “actual” statement would have been “Tooth out, and 35 pigs stolen”. A delayed reaction joke, keyed by the Yeth when the editor called back. Groans applicable.

“If I remember correctly, WUWT carried a report about this error a few weeks ago. I believe the original date was 2350, which somehow mutated into 2035. It may have been an honest mistake, but such an absurd claim should have been picked up by the ‘experts’. Unfortunately, so many of these experts are blinded by the AGW religion that absurd claims like this are likely to pass unquestioned. Actually, this might be changing now as the media are definitely taking more note of what the sceptics have been saying. This may be a very beneficial result of Climategate”.

:-)) Honest mistake?????????????????? My dear, dear fellow your talent for understatement knows no bounds, impossible for an organisation with 2,500 scientists who cannot be wrong producing the reports, 400 lead authors, 850 co-authors, (400 + 850 = 1250 x 2 (for the hell of it = 2500) & reviewed line by line by 140 governments & their representatives around the world? Their words, not mine, & not one of them spotted it. Doesn’t say much for their accuracy. Somebody’s telling porkies IMHO! After all, 2350 is not as worrying as 2035, & after SPM 0/1 Rate of Sea-Level rise fiasco in AR4 where they couldn’t get the decimal place in the right position nor add the column of figures up correctly! 2,500 scientists couldn’t be wrong my arse. :-))

Jmanon:
So the former head of the WWF is now the head of the UK Met office?
Not so much WWF as [snip]
Another former noble charity taken over by ‘Professional’ bleeding hearts.
I use the term ‘professional’ in terms that ‘Bleeding hearts’ don’t often do something for nothing.
Even a grotty enviromentalist won’t get out of bed unless there is a pop concert as a reward.

Beneath the tip of the Climategate iceberg is this emerging shadow of an unholy alliance of Politicians, Scientists, and Publishers – directed by a still invisible world government.

The PSP plan that the internet web has frustrated:

a.) Al Gore was to become the first President, King or Savior.
b.) NAS => NAP [National Academy of Sciences became the NA Propaganda].
c.) EPA => NAP tool [“CO2 is a dangerous pollutant”].
d.) National sovereignty/boarders/governments were to disappear.
e.) Democracies would vanish.

I like it; add it to the lexicon; fits SO well with so much of the politically-correct and UNscientific IPCC-AGW dogma. :-]

BTW: If you throw ”IPCC glaciers melting speculation” at Google, it returns ~30K hits. Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Times Online, Australian, Times of India, etcetera all have good coverage of this latest IPCC fiasco.

BUT (our friends Down Under REALLY need a change in government leadership):
Australian Climage Minister Penny Wong STILL (report this morning) sez:

”This is a report that has been peer reviewed extensively; very few errors have been found in it and none that challenge the central findings,”

SIDEBAR: This thread on WUWT shows up pretty close to the top in above Google search. Better watch out, Anthony & Friends:
Continue like this, and with 32.5M hits and counting, pretty soon you may start to be considered ”main stream”. . . . ;-]

This is a very sloppy posting… and totally obfuscates the point. Glaciers over much of the Himalayas are melting at an unprecedented rate… the exact date doesn’t matter. The implication of the facts is important, and there is very strong evidence. Even students papers require references and, heavens!, even the bozos in Realclimate actually give good references.

Once again I plead to please maintain standards.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report. REFERENCE?

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. REFERENCE?

Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: REFERENCE? to whom did he say this and where?

This is sloppy writing and meaningless without references. it could simply be made up by some punter with a political axe to grind… God forbid..

David Kitchen writes: “This is a very sloppy posting… and totally obfuscates the point. Glaciers over much of the Himalayas are melting at an unprecedented rate… the exact date doesn’t matter. ”

David, in the brief time I have visited this website, I have discovered that the the philosophy of science for many here is that, if you’re wrong about one thing in the science, then everything else must be wrong.

“MikeP (06:55:40) :
u.k.(us) (19:52:34) : If nobody has answered it before. The “actual” statement would have been “Tooth out, and 35 pigs stolen”. A delayed reaction joke, keyed by the Yeth when the editor called back. Groans applicable.”

Mike, I think it would have been, “Two sows and thirty-pigs.”
You were close though….

“Apparently NASA knows by reading IPCC, who knows by reading World Wildlife Foundation reports, who know by reading a magazine article where one scientist’s speculation is quoted as fact.”

Notice: This is exactly how Jane Lubchenco has operated for years. Before NOAA, OSU professor Lubchenco speculated her way into science publications and all of her supposition morphed into established science.
Now as head of NOAA Lubchenco promises to produce a National Climate Service and institutionalize her brand science by fabrication.

“A number of scientists who backed the CO2 based AGW theory are now suffering from buyer’s remorse. According to atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh,’many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly, without having their professional careers ruined.’”

1. Source of quotation, please.
2. Did he provides names for the “many?”
**********************************

The actual claim is on page 493 of: Asia. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

It reads:

Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other
part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate
continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035
and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at
the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present
500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).

So there’s the WWF reference. Pretty lame.

But that’s it- The rest of the section refers to other sources, and the claim about these glaciers disappearing repeated only once, a few pages earlier in a figure. The rest of the claims about glaciers receding refer to other published research.

So, the IPCC goofed this one. Hooray, another (teeny) scalp.

BTW- the IPCC acknowledges the impacts of land use! Same page as above: “The receding and thinning of Himalayan glaciers can be
attributed primarily to the global warming due to increase in
anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases. The relatively high
population density near these glaciers and consequent
deforestation and land-use changes have also adversely affected
these glaciers.”

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report. REFERENCE?

This revelation about the IPCC report was published in New Scientist which expressed surprise that a speculatiuve story was the original source. The story about this revelation is on the New Scientist website with blog postings about it on this blog and Pielke Jr’s among others

My intial electrical/electronic engineering training was in the Royal Air Force and we used AVO’s (Amps, Volts, Ohms) in 1980 and right up until I left in 1994. Built like Chieftan tanks they were! (Of course by 1994 we did have DVM’s as well!) :-)

WUWT, it appears now, is the last person in the circle in The Whisper Game.

The story has gone around the circle, each governmental agency and scientist and reporter adding their own spin on the “facts”, until finally WUWT blurts out the end result……and we all sit here in hysterics because we know the truth.

Too bad it’s not funny. But it would be if the MSM had the cahones to carry it.

“Steve Oregon (07:47:53) :
“Apparently NASA knows by reading IPCC, who knows by reading World Wildlife Foundation reports, who know by reading a magazine article where one scientist’s speculation is quoted as fact.””

The science of rumor. It is truly astounding that any credibility is given to any supposed organization that gets its “facts” either directly or indirectly from an internet rumor. In essence that is what it is.

Steve Oregon: I’m not interested in your criticism of Jane Lubchenco, but as I read your post is suggests that you are in support of a strong peer review process for publishing scientific research. Am I correct?

Did you try following the links actually provided? They DO have other links and other REFERENCES. This story is not new. It may be new for The Times, but it is not new here and has been covered before. You have been provided the links. Follow them.

And now we all have a ring side seat as we watch Politicians navigate through the mind fields of fact. Prime Minister Rudd of Austrialia is trying hard to ignore the heads rolling. He’s hoping he can also ignore the many Letters and communications offering to inform him of the facts. Ozzies are not easily fooled, PM Rudd stands to ‘brand’ himself with a ‘mark’ that he will wear the rest of his days. so it is with others including the local news reporter who mindlessly reads the propaganda from the prompter.

Himalayan glaciers may disappear by 2035
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)’s scientist, professor Syed Hasnain, in a recent study claimed that “All the glaciers in the middle Himalayas are retreating, and they could disappear from the central and eastern Himalayas by 2035.”http://www.tribuneindia.com/2008/20081111/main5.htm

Professor Murari Lal should appologise to the world and resign from the IPCC. Before he loses all credibility.. whoops too late. Another member of the IPCC discredited and humiliated. The list grows by the minute.

Syed Hasnain, the scientist at the centre of the growing controversy over melting Himalayan glaciers, is now working for Dr R K Pachauri’s TERI as head of the institute glaciology team, funded by a generous grant from a US charity, researching the effects of the retreat.

This is a very sloppy posting… and totally obfuscates the point. Glaciers over much of the Himalayas are melting at an unprecedented rate… the exact date doesn’t matter. The implication of the facts is important, and there is very strong evidence. Even students papers require references and, heavens!, even the bozos in Realclimate actually give good references.

I’m not clear as to what is “the implication of the facts.” If you look at some of the Swiss data, it’s clear that the rate of retreat varies hugely over time, look at http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/glaciers/obgrindelwald.html , so whatever is happening in the Himalayas today may well be very different in the next decade. It is clear that it would take a huge increase in the current melt rate to make them disappear by 2035 as the IPCC claims. (Present tense, nothing here says they’ve retracted that claim.)

Do you or RC have a link to a site like ETHZ’s for Himalayan glaciers?

I count about ten different names at various places in the link you provide, and no quotations from any stating anything I would categorize as “buyer’s remorse.” A review of the names indicates that some of those do not meet my defintion of scientist. For example, Steve McIntyre, does not have any formal training in climate science, so I wonder if you include him as part of your statement. Therefore, what you write here does not meet my definition of “A number of scientists who backed the CO2 based AGW theory are now suffering from buyer’s remorse.”

Elsewhere in the document is the statement “Recently, several NASA scientists have resigned in protest” but there’s no link to anything, nor any names of those scientists. Therefore, absent any evidence, this assertion has yet to reach the level of attributable fact.

In short, I’m not finding the facts for what you assert in the website you pointed me towards.

Apparently the AVO is no more, nobody makes the mechanical parts anymore.

The US version was probably the military TS-352.”

There were a lot of AVO versions, some specifically for the military and some for heavy current engineers.

AVO meters went out of production last year I recall. RS still have a stock I see. At nearly £900, maybe it’s understandable they still have stock to clear. You can pick them up secondhand for £5 to £40. Most of them are still accurate. There are a few specialist repairers about. I’ve got an AVO, but I mainly use a DMM. AVOs are nice things with a feel of solid quality about them. Back in the day, the only way you could get the accuracy they offered was by making a carefully individually finished unit with a large scale. It’s surprising they carried on in production for so long.

It was as much as I could do to resist joining in the OT discussions about Nixie tubes a few days back.

>>No one comes out of this untarnished and what
>>does this do for the New Scientist’s reputation? It
>>is about as trustworthy now as those newspapers
>>at the supermarket check out which proclaim “Elvis
>>abducted by Aliens”.

New Scientist has not had a reputation worth losing for the last 20 years, ever since it became the printing press of Greenpeace. It is one step above the Beano.

Increased water vapour from other areas brings moisture to this region, which freezes and adds to the glacier. In other words, a rapidly increasing glacier also points to global climate change.

Like it or not, climate science is complicated, which means the whole field isn’t predicated on a couple of temperature readings. Picking apart one small area isn’t enough to refute the entire body of evidence. The reporting here is far more shoddy than that which the IPCC is being accused.

According to Prof Graham Cogley (Trent University, Ontario), a short article on the future of glaciers by a Russian scientist (Kotlyakov, V.M., 1996, The future of glaciers under the expected climate warming, 61-66, in Kotlyakov, V.M., ed., 1996, Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale, Technical Documents in Hydrology, 1. UNESCO, Paris (IHP-IV Project H-4.1). 78p estimates 2350 as the year for disappearance of glaciers, but the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 in the Official IPCC documents, WGII 2007 p. 493!

“”” Looking ahead, the prospects seem to be getting worse rather than better, according to Hasnain. “Scientists have projected a 43 percent decrease in the glacial area on an average by 2070 and a 75 percent decrease in the glacial area by the end of the 21st century at the current rate of global warming,” says Hasnain. “””

Well “at the current rate of glohbal warming”, the whole of India is likely to be iced over by 2070.

So when did this glaciologist make such a statement, and what was the current rate of global warming at that time ? What kind of scientific instruction teaches that something that is happening now will continue unabated forever ?

At the rate of global warming observed in 1998, the whole planet will liquify before too long.

******
Steve K (09:55:22) :
Jim writes:
“Here’s where the quote came from … http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html”
For example, Steve McIntyre, does not have any formal training in climate science, so I wonder if you include him as part of your statement. Therefore, what you write here does not meet my definition of “A number of scientists who backed the CO2 based AGW theory are now suffering from buyer’s remorse.”
In short, I’m not finding the facts for what you assert in the website you pointed me towards.
***********************
Apparently you can’t understand simple English. “Here’s where the quote came from.” means that web site was written by James A. Peden, Editor.

As far as McIntyre is concerned, James Hansen isn’t a climatologist, he has degrees in Astronomy and Physics. Michael Mann has a degree in Geology. McIntyre understands statistics better than either one of them as has been demonstrated so your appeal to authority is meaningless.

“Never mind ‘arrogance’ or “I told you so’. Rajendra Pachauri must be forced to resign and the IPCC revamped, if not dissolved.”

Speaking of the need for the IPCC to be revamped … while I was rummaging around in the Climategate files, I discovered a remarkably revealing document: Briffa’s Aug. 1/96 “responses” on behalf of the AR4 WG1 Chapter 6 “chapter team” to the reviews of the Second Order Draft.

Did some quantitative and qualitative analysis that yielded results (from where I’m sitting, at least) which strongly suggest that their much vaunted “peer review” process leaves much to be desired. It certainly calls into question how statements get included in their reports.

I only followed the trail of comments on one particular paragraph (and as an aside I actually found a “hockey stick” that actually appears to have “disappeared” from some text in a First Order Draft – *after* the comments had been compiled and “responded” to!) but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar pattern on others.

I’ll post this again because no one seems to have noticed it – strangely the BBC did report this back in early December:

Andrew P (00:17:06) :
Just in case this hasn’t been pointed out, it may have taken a month for the Times and other mainstream media to pick it up, but the BBC covered this back in early December – first with:

That said both pages were buried in the expanse of their website, and (not surprisingly) neither pages were given any links from the front page or from their Science/Environment section. (It was the run up to Copenhagen and they wouldn’t want tio upset the warmists would they?).

World Wildlife Fund? This fund flies its representatives, Hollywood stars, and the “green” elitists around the globe in their private aircraft to experience the wonders of the world, while us commoners pay for their carbon footprint. What is good for them, is not good for us.
Similar to the Wildlife Conservancy in CA. Last February Senator Feinstein blocked the construction of a potential new solar power utility in southern CA.
The meaning of environmentalist has changed dramatically since the IPCC was created. When politicians, lawyers and rich elitists gather usually means one thing: how can we monetize or enrich ourselves at the expense of the human taxpayer.

David Kitchen writes: “This is a very sloppy posting… and totally obfuscates the point. Glaciers over much of the Himalayas are melting at an unprecedented rate… the exact date doesn’t matter. ”

David, in the brief time I have visited this website, I have discovered that the the philosophy of science for many here is that, if you’re wrong about one thing in the science, then everything else must be wrong.

Steve, “One Thing in the science”?
How about the “Hockey Stick”?
Date Manipulation?
The Useless Trend Calulations?
The Ice melting at unprecedented rates just like the Glaciers?
The Sea levels Rising at unprecedented rates?
Temperatures dropping while CO2 rises?
The Unknown “Forcing” that makes CO2 so dangerous?

NEW DELHI: The furore over the validity of data used by UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has taken some of the sheen off the Nobel prize-winning institution’s reputation.

A day after it emerged that IPCC’s dire prediction that climate change would melt most Himalyan glaciers by 2035 was based on mere “speculation”, environment minister Jairam Ramesh slammed the processes of the celebrated body saying “due diligence had not been followed by the Nobel peace prize winning body”.

“The health of glaciers is a cause of grave concern but the IPCC’s alarmist position that they would melt by 2035 was not based on an iota of scientific evidence,” the environment minister said.

Ramesh recalled how IPCC chief R K Pachauri had scornfully dismissed doubts raised by a government agency about the veracity of the UN body’s sensational projection about melting of glaciers. “In fact, we had issued a report by scientist V K Raina that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. At the time, we were dismissed, saying it was based on voodoo science. But the new report has clearly vindicated our position,” he said.

“Apparently you can’t understand simple English. ‘Here’s where the quote came from.’”

I can understand simple English, so please drop the ad hominem attacks. You’ve provided a quote, but the source provides no evidence for the assertion it contains. I’d like to know the names of the scientists it claims have changed their minds. As for your comments regarding Mann, Hansen, and McIntyre: if an individual wants to be regarded as a scientist, I typically draw the line that those credentials requires performing scientific research that is recognized as a contribution to science by his or her peers.

“Picking apart one small area isn’t enough to refute the entire body of evidence. The reporting here is far more shoddy than that which the IPCC is being accused.”

You seem to be missing the point. It is not about refuting bodies of evidence. It is about the simple fact that the worlds most eminent climate body, the gold standard authority for climate predictions, has cited as “compelling evidence,” based on supposedly “peer reviewed science”, something that not only was not peer reveiwed, but was not even a scientifc paper. It was apparently the result of an interview published in a popular science mag. In other words, the data was not what it was claimed to be.

This is a very serious matter. Shoddy is not a word I would use. Breathtakingly incompetent at best, fraudulent at worst.

I believe he *actually* wrote “by the year 2350″ and it was the IPCC who misquoted the report. If I’m in error on that, Somebody ‘Way Smarter Than I Am™ will correct me.

Here’s my understanding of the matter, from informally (without noting the exact wording or the links) checking this matter out, and from my recollection. The guy who exposed this error, a fellow named Pearce, initially suspected the mistake was the result of a typo from 2350 in a Russian report. But a few weeks later he discovered, from tracking down the reference in the IPCC report to its ultimate source, that it had come, via New Scientist and the WWF, from an Indian scientist’s speculation, or horseback diagnosis. So his first guess, that it was due to a typo, has been superseded.

How about the “Hockey Stick”?
Date Manipulation?
The Useless Trend Calulations?
The Ice melting at unprecedented rates just like the Glaciers?
The Sea levels Rising at unprecedented rates?
Temperatures dropping while CO2 rises?
The Unknown “Forcing” that makes CO2 so dangerous?

Just how many do you need?

I need all of them. For each of these, please provide me with the following:

1. A reference to the section of the IPCC report that is addresses the point in question above;

2. The published, peer-reviewed scientific literature that the IPCC cites as the reference to the point in question (its right there in the IPCC), and

” A review of the names indicates that some of those do not meet my defintion of scientist.

1. What exactly is your definition of a scientist?

Lets look at statistics:
Wikipedia:
“Statistics is the science of making effective use of numerical data relating to groups of individuals or experiments. It deals with all aspects of this, including not only the collection, analysis and interpretation of such data, but also the planning of the collection of data, in terms of the design of surveys and experiments.”

As an operational definition let’s say that one who does science is a scientist, just as one who does art is an artist and one who writes words is a writer and one who builds houses is a house builder. Now, one scientist may be a bad scientist just as an artist can be a bad artist and a builder can construct a bad house. Moving on, you write:

“For example, Steve McIntyre, does not have any formal training in climate science, so I wonder if you include him as part of your statement. ”

1. you seem to place a reliance on formal training.
2. you seem to think there is such a thing as “climate science,” that is something called “climate”

WRT formal training. Michael Mann by his own admission is not a statistician, yet he invents ( and gets wrong) statistical methods. When he uses methods devised by others ( decentering ) he gets it wrong at least according to the scientist who devised the method. He has no formal training in tree rings ( dendrochronology) or biology and uses trees (bristlecone pines) when they should be avoided. He has no formal training in the analysis of varves. And when he inverts a sediment series, an inversion explicitly prohibited by the expert who collected the data, he claims it doesn’t matter. With that same series he includes data that has been contaminated by human activity ( logging) which the original author and other experts argue should be excluded. Further the presence or absence of formal training tells you nothing about the science produced. The untrained and the trained can make mistakes. The untrained and the trained can make discoveries. The key point is does the science stand up to scrutiny? When others look at the data and the code, do they see the same thing. If people dont share code and data ( like mann and jones) then we get to question their science. period. we get to question it. In fact our doubt should be more severe if someone with formal training refuses to share the data and code since there is no scientific reason to withhold it.

WRT this thing you call “climate science.” From a strictly observational standpoint, from looking at what actually get done in “climate science”
from looking at where it exists at universities, from looking at the courses offered, “climate science” is an interdisciplinarian field with many specialities: modelling, statistics, atmosphere, sea, land processes, chemistry, physics, solar science, economics, the list goes on.

very simply. Steve Mcintyre has formal training in statistics. Statistics is a science, not an art, not a religion, not philosophy. Climate science as it is practiced employs scientists from many other sciences, geology, biology, physics, chemistry, and yes statistics. So, yes McIntyre is a climate scientist.

Alternatively, you could look at a problem like calculating the global world temperature and conclude this: Constructing the global world temperature requires the following skills:

1. Collection and preservation of historical records for around the world
( archive expert)
2. Organizing historical records into an efficient and traceable database
(database expert)
3. Adjusting the temperature series for inhomogeneous collection methods
( time series statistics)
4. Computing a global average from the individual stations
( geo statistics)
5. Presenting that data in a graphs and charts
( statistics)

Jones and harry ( from the harry read me) has a horrible track record
at database management. In the FOIA process he argued that he had
not kept track of changes and did not keep confidential data separate
from non confidential as simple data security protocols would indicate.
Grade? F.

3. Adjusting the temperature series for inhomogeneous collection methods

The important thing here is keeping your raw data and showing the
stepwise changes to your final answer for every adjustment made to
the time series. Jones has not done this. Further it is important to carry
forward uncertainties created by the adjustment process. he didnt do
this. Finally, its critical to have these adjustments validated openly.
he didnt do that: Grade D-

4. Computing a global average from the individual stations
( geo statistics)
Jones does ok here. He area averages the data based on the spatial
distribution of the stations. His approach to grid cells which are
partially land and partially sea has some issues that need to be explored.
Grade? B+

5. Presenting that data in a graphs and charts
( statistics)
While Jones did not hide a decline in CRUTEMP, there was a glaring
error in the smoother that they used on the graphs they post. That error
was found and fixed. Grade: C.

I think the global temperature average is important. Put a better student on it.

I would not be so generous – yet. Clearly he does not want to show how he averaged them (by removing the raw data), and unless you keep the weighting the same, you skew the results. The truth is he should have an incomplete until he can produce the raw data to verify how the averaging and hence the trending of the averages was carried out.

Page 2:
‘The New Scientist magazine carried the article ‘Flooded Out – Retreating glaciers spell disaster for valley communities’ in their 5 June 1999 issue. It quoted Professor Syed Hasnain, then Chairman of the International Commission for Snow and Ice’s (ICSI) Working Group on Himalayan Glaciology, who said most of the glaciers in the Himalayan region ‘will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming’. The article also predicted that freshwater flow in rivers across South Asia will ‘eventually diminish, resulting in widespread water shortages’.”

Page 29:
“As discussed in the thematic introduction to this regional status review, there is particular concern at the alarming rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers. In 1999, a report by the Working Group on Himalayan Glaciology (WGHG) of the International Commission for Snow and Ice (ICSI) stated: “glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the livelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 is very high”. Direct observation of a select few snout positions out of the thousands of Himalayan glaciers indicate that they have been in a general state of decline over, at least, the past 150 years.”

“Apparently you can’t understand simple English. ‘Here’s where the quote came from.’”

I can understand simple English, so please drop the ad hominem attacks. You’ve provided a quote, but the source provides no evidence for the assertion it contains. I’d like to know the names of the scientists it claims have changed their minds. As for your comments regarding Mann, Hansen, and McIntyre: if an individual wants to be regarded as a scientist, I typically draw the line that those credentials requires performing scientific research that is recognized as a contribution to science by his or her peers.
*******************
1. Peer review means nothing since the Hockey Team bastardized the process.
2. In my view McIntyre at least in part has redeemed science. As far as I’m concerned he is more a scientist that Mann, Jones, or Hansen because he is skeptical and honest. More than I can say for the so-called “climatologists”.

I’m afraid Dave Kitchen (above) and others who claim there’s
“unprecedented melting of the Himalayan glaciers
are chock full of wild blueberry muffins. They haven’t read the original report from India’s MoEF which Mr. Pachauri
called “arrogant”.

Here’s the link to the Government of India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests Discussion Paper, “Himalayan Glaciers – A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change” edited by V.K.Raina, the former Deputy Director of the Geological Survey of India:

[Where] did this number 2035 (the year when glaciers could vanish) come from?
According to Prof Graham Cogley (Trent University, Ontario), a short article on the future of glaciers by a Russian scientist (Kotlyakov, V.M., 1996, The future of glaciers under the expected climate warming, 61-66, in Kotlyakov, V.M., ed., 1996, Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale, Technical Documents in Hydrology, 1. UNESCO, Paris (IHP-IV Project H-4.1). 78p estimates 2350 as the year for disappearance of glaciers, but the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 in the Official IPCC documents, WGII 2007 p. 493!

David, in the brief time I have visited this website, I have discovered that the the philosophy of science for many here is that, if you’re wrong about one thing in the science, then everything else must be wrong.

Anthony,
I apologise for taking up space to advise contributors regarding who are the characters involved in the current Australian Government, but, some things just have to be corrected. The name of the current Australian Prime Minister is Mr Krudd.
This is totally consistent with the tripe that he turns out regarding climate change with the support of Ms Wrong, the subject of an earlier post.
Regards

1. Peer review means nothing since the Hockey Team bastardized the process.
The National Academies of Science disagree with you. What do you know that they don’t?

2. In my view McIntyre at least in part has redeemed science. As far as I’m concerned he is more a scientist that Mann, Jones, or Hansen because he is skeptical and honest. More than I can say for the so-called “climatologists”.
You’re entitled to your opinions. However, I’m looking for facts.
*********************
So you believe you will get “facts” from the Hockey Team? So you believe they are the “peers” whose word make each other “scientists?”

Yep, we can be certain Robin Hood isn’t a robber. After all, the Merry Men vouch for him!

If Mcintyre sincerely thinks Mann, et. al. are so wrong because of their methods, then he should write it up — and put his own research through the full rigors of the scientific process.
*****************
Yeah, right! We’ll contact Nature right away and invite Mann and Hansen to do the so-called peer review. That’s such a laugh.

If Mcintyre sincerely thinks Mann, et. al. are so wrong because of their methods, then he should write it up — and put his own research through the full rigors of the scientific process.
*****************

Steve, No need. His analysis of the Hockey stick was peer reviewed. And confirmed.

A review of the names indicates that some of those do not meet my defintion of scientist. For example, Steve McIntyre, does not have any formal training in climate science, so I wonder if you include him as part of your statement

Steve Mc may not be a climate scientist, he has never claimed to be & limits his comment to his field of expertise, ie statistics! As most of climate science seems to be statistical manipulation, I would say he’s well qualified!

Is it just me or does Pachauri have a corrupt look about him? His face reminds me of photos of Rasputin – alleged lover and confidant of the last Russian czarina. Perhaps the skin really is the mirror of the soul?

Which utimely led to a US Congress investigation and the Wegman report which had this:

Findings
In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling. We also comment that they were attempting to draw attention to the discrepancies in MBH98 and MBH99, and not to do paleoclimatic temperature reconstruction. Normally, one would try to select a
calibration dataset that is representative of the entire dataset. The 1902-1995 data is not fully appropriate for calibration and leads to a misuse in principal component analysis. However, the reasons for setting 1902-1995 as the calibration point presented in the narrative of MBH98 sounds reasonable, and the error may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimatology studies have had significant
interactions with mainstream statisticians.

In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature
reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface.

So in short McIntyre did go through the “peer review” process and it ended up in a Congressional investigation that concluded that McIntyre was right and Mann was wrong in his methods.

Oh and another take home statement from the Wegman Report is this:

Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.

Sorry, but the BBC did NOT report this story. They did acknowledge that the glaciers disappearing by 2035 was impossible, but the assumption that it should have been 2350 was also SPECULATION BY A SCIENTIST ON THE PHONE.

It still assumes AGW and only changes the timescale not the outcome.

The IPCC did not bother to check while they had the chance.

The current story shows how fiction became hard fact in a wonderfully farcical totally embarrassing way, which is why the BBC has not reported the updated version.

Credentials are irrelevant. They are just patch protection. RESULTS are what count. Had Einstein not gone to school anywhere for a single day his calculations would have been just as valid as they are.

When I was 21 years old, in 1962, with NO formal training in psychology let alone “qualifications” I detected Sir Cyril Burt’s fraud. And I did it EASILY without even looking for fraud. The fraud just leaped off the page to me as it should have to ANY person with some(not much required) maths knowledge. It wasn’t until ten years later that a scientist(not even a psychologist) pointed out the fraud. The point? Fraud can be detected by anyone; it doesn’t take a “scientist” with “qualifications”.

But there’s more. I consider it absurd to claim that there is such a thing as “climate science”. There is almost no science involved. It’s about at the level of Botany from two hundred years ago; a “descritive science”. Mathematics isn’t science(because no empirical content); “climate science” isn’t science because no theoretical content(to speak of).

The total opposite of Anthony, who provides us freely with valid information. Some might say boasting about website hits is arrogant, but I dont think it is. I think its just a way of showing how well people are responding to the truth, because truth sells better thant lies in my opinion.

I haven’t checked the Independent and Guardian, but as Glenn noted well up-thread, BBC had an article back on December 5th titled “Himalayan glaciers melting deadline ‘a mistake’ ”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8387737.stm

I have no idea whether or not it made it onto any broadcast.

The story seems to be gaining traction and I expect that it will appear on many more media outlets over the next few days. The original BBC story went pretty much unnoticed, but the it has now shown up in enough places that other media outlets consider it news.

The news is that Mehmet Ali Agca, the fruitcake who shot Pope John Paul II, was released from prison. He announced that the world will end, and every last person will die, before the end of this century. Do you think we should put him in touch will Al Gore?

“And now we all have a ring side seat as we watch Politicians navigate through the mind fields of fact. Prime Minister Rudd of Austrialia is trying hard to ignore the heads rolling. He’s hoping he can also ignore the many Letters and communications offering to inform him of the facts. Ozzies are not easily fooled, PM Rudd stands to ‘brand’ himself with a ‘mark’ that he will wear the rest of his days. so it is with others including the local news reporter who mindlessly reads the propaganda from the prompter.” – GB

George,

I sincerely hope that “Ozzies are not easily fooled”. It will be difficult or impossible to battle an alliance of Politicians, Scientists, and Publishers.

If not for internet blogs, e-mails and efforts of a few brave and talented folks like Anthony Watts, Steve Mosher et al, most USA citizens would be completely unaware of the deceit and data manipulation uncovered in the climategate scandal.

There is still little or no coverage in our news media of the climategate scandal.

and Nature responded with this news report: “The demise of established dogmas on the formation of the Solar System” [Nature 303 (26 May 1983) page 286].

Today “the science is settled” – on global climate warming, the formation of the solar system, the composition of the Sun, solar neutrino oscillations, and everything else where the NAP has an official dogma. Unfortunately,

Now that this thread is played out, I wish to note that I submitted a very amusing and apropos comment that was either spammed or snipped, even though it was right on target. The comment was:

purple monkey dishwasher

I fear the moderator was simply not aware of how droll and literary that comment was, and so rejected it. But I don’t blame you; it is also esoteric l33t. However, if you Google or Bing the phrase, you will see how truly witty and germane that comment was/is.

<i<Roger Knights (12:30:32) :Bill Tuttle (00:57:24) :“I believe he *actually* wrote “by the year 2350″ and it was the IPCC who misquoted the report. If I’m in error on that, Somebody ‘Way Smarter Than I Am™ will correct me.”Here’s my understanding of the matter, from informally (without noting the exact wording or the links) checking this matter out, and from my recollection. The guy who exposed this error, a fellow named Pearce, initially suspected the mistake was the result of a typo from 2350 in a Russian report.

Neo (14:42:46) :Kotlyakov, V.M., ed., 1996, Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale, Technical Documents in Hydrology, 1. UNESCO, Paris (IHP-IV Project H-4.1). 78p estimates 2350 as the year for disappearance of glaciers, but the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 in the Official IPCC documents, WGII 2007 p. 493!

They cite 9 examples. The time periods all differ (why would they do this, unless these are cherry-picked to give the most dramatic “declines”?). The periods are: 1906-1957, 1845-1966, 1909-1984, 1977-1984, 1977-1990, 1969-1995, 1977-1995, 1986-1995, and 1985-2001. They also have one (Gangotri) with overlapping periods (1977-1990 and 1985-2001).

it is also puzzling that they have 1845-1966, whereas the rest are 20th century. I am guessing that they really meant “1945” rather than “1845”, as the annual retreat would be wrongly calculated on the earlier date.

I find it shocking that I, as a complete layman (with a puny undergrad degree in Maths and Computer Science) can immediately spot a basic error, especially since this is a “poster child” of AR4.

‘There is mounting proof that accelerating glacial melt is occurring, although the specifics are poorly defined, in part because these glaciers are remote and poorly studied. In the Himalayans plateau, there have been a growing number of disastrous floods, called glacial lake outburst floods, that occur when new lakes created by glacial melt, burst out of their rocky confines.’

Sloppy use of words denoting incoherent thought. But then the __Times__ is dedicated to making the world safe for mediocrity.

First of all, ‘proof’ is an absolute, either/or concept, like being pregnant. A woman is either pregnant or she isn’t; she doesn’t become ‘increasingly pregnant’ or ‘mountingly pregnant’ as the trimesters go by. No more does the Pythagoren theorem become increasingly proven because some one discovers the two hundred and fiftieth (or whatever) method of prooving. What the writer should have said is ‘evidence’.

So hear ‘evidence’ instead of ‘proof’; the next question is, what evidence? Evidence is something like ‘specifics’, i.e. actually occurring events (weather, not climate). But we are told that these ‘specifics’ are ‘poorly defined’. If they are poorly, i.e. hazily defined, how can they claim to be specific? As a kicker, we learn that the glaciers are ‘remote and poorly studied’ (please grant my grant to do this). We are then doled out one gruelly teaspoonful of an example in the apparent uptick in glacially-fed flooding.

Yet all of this blue-smoke-and -mirrors doubt and ignorance leads, we are instructed to believe, to confidently ‘mounting proof’ of a rapidly developing cataclysm!

@Mike Atkins: The use of different periods is probably not cherry-picking. Measurements of glacier length can be either made directly or inferred from photos, satellite imagery, or previous moraine extents. The periods are thus defined by when the measurements are available.

Of the Himalayan Glaciers, AR4 says the likelihood of the glaciers melting is very high. In AR4 language, the probability is greater than 90%, the same probability attached to the central forecast of 20th century warming is mostly due to anthropogenic factors, and the forecast prediction for 21st century warming.
We now know no basis made for the claim for the Himalayan Glaciers, despite statements about the report having been rigorously checked. For the main conclusions to remain beyond reproach, there are two possibilities. Firstly, there were different standards set for the central conclusions as for the peripheral impacts. Second, this was an isolated slip, or solely confined to a small section of the report. But for either case to hold, needs to be determined. This can only be established by a thorough and independent audit to determine the extent of the problem. Until such time as this takes place, the central conclusions cannot be viewed as scientifically sound.

Well one of my now treasured possesssions; for which I paid about $7 hard earned, is a book about ALL of the early British Everest Expeditions, in 1922/3/4; and mainly about the only man who was on all three and died on one of them; don’t remember which one; George Lee Mallory.

There are pictures taken at over 23,000 feet on Everest glaciers, with huge canyons carved in that mass of ice from MELTING, that dwarf the height of a man.

Now maybe it was sublimation due to low humidity aided by fierce winds up the mountain. But those glaciers were perfectly capable of receding way back then before ozone holes were invented.

Mike Atkins (03:09:57) : says ” .. at the entry (10.6) in AR4. There is a table of glacier retreat that really puzzles me.
They cite 9 examples. The time periods all differ (why would they do this, unless these are cherry-picked to give the most dramatic “declines”?). ……

The odd, irregular dates of the retreat measurements simply reflect the various expeditions that went to the various glaciers.

http://iahs.info/redbooks/a058/05828.pdf is a 4 page report from 1958 that has some history of the expeditions to the Pindari glacier. It notes that in the 59 years between a 1847 survey by Stratchey and a 1906 survey by Cotter that the snout of the Pindari had receded by 1 mile/1600m, or about 27 meters per year. In the 52 years from 1906 to 1958 the snout had retreated 1040 meters or 20 meters per year — a slight reduction in speed of retreat.

And Mike Atkins (03:09:57) goes on to say “it is also puzzling that they have 1845-1966, whereas the rest are 20th century. I am guessing that they really meant “1945″ rather than “1845″, as the annual retreat would be wrongly calculated on the earlier date.”

As some other blogger noted a month or two ago, it appears that the IPCC has a basic math error in table 10.9. 2840 meters of retreat from 1845 to 1966 is 23.5 m/year, not the 135.2m/yr shown in the table. It appears that they incorrectly divided 2840 meters by 21 rather than the 121 years between 1845 and 1966.

Whether the correct date starting date is 1845, 1847 or there were two different expeditions is unclear, but based upon the other errors in this section, my bet is on the 1958 article linked above that refers to measurements in 1847.

I also find it strange that IPCC couldn’t find any data more current than 1966.

“It is more than obvious that Pearce has a political agenda that exists prior to ‘the science’ he reports. This prior-ness is something we have emphasised here on Climate Resistance as fundamental to understanding the phenomenon of environmentalism: the disaster scenario is the premise of environmental politics, not the conclusion of environmental science.”

In fact I would recommend this site to everybody. They only post when they have something worth posting but it’s always worth the wait.